There's A Light That Enters Houses With No Other House In Sight (feat. Franz Wright & Christian Fennesz)

I was having trouble sleeping I don't know how long I'd been lying there And listening to the blizzard When I had the most vivid impression That it was a blizzard in Minneapolis in 1959 And I found this disturbing I knew it would now have to turn on its lamp Get out of bed And try to write about me And of course, no matter what it wrote I would just sound like something it had made up But in the end, it decided to stay put Turn over And keep me to itself I think that was the right thing to do After all, I was only a blizzard in Minneapolis in 1959 How are you supposed to describe something like me? When you think about it, why should you try? Why should you even care? "Be it ever so scarred and unstable The table you write at belongs right in front of a mirror" So spoke the battered master To my knowledge The single author that magnificent and winged lunatic Rambo Ever deigned to admit admiration for Think of it At this time, the poet was fortunate To have the use of a table and mirror Not to mention a room where he could concentrate As he occasionally managed to do In spite of the distractions involved in dealing with some of the Semi-literate individuals who then, as now Were known to enter the literary profession As if for the sole purpose of hounding and tormenting Anyone with the poor judgement To show some actual talent for writing I have a preference for blank walls myself Though I certainly never would have said so in his presence In his presence, I very much doubt I would have been capable Of articulating opinions or thoughts on any subject whatsoever Windows are out, however No windows I have enough trouble with what I can see through the wall Only a minute ago, I was watching him pass by And to judge by the look on his face I am afraid he was going through One of his brief stretches of addresslessness Caught between the gentle hospitalities Of one poetry-loving landlord and the next The austere amenities Of one un-flushing toilet of an apartment and another He was limping slightly As though he had on two left shoes Finally stopping to rest on a vacant park bench It wasn't raining that hard Vomiting tactfully, first, in some bushes nearby Probably nothing, a touch of opioid withdrawal There'd been no indication of alcoholic seizure And as it was relatively unlikely That food had been ingested in a while He made no mess to speak of A mere ounce or so of some sort of green liquid Which blended in well with that damp and verdant scene As he did not appear to be carrying a notebook Thankfully, there would be no need to make use of his aching knees Which had so often served quite nicely as a desk That allowed him to hunch his thin shoulders And slowly bend forward to shield his page From the various forms of precipitation So prevalent in his part of the world Evidently, he'd misplaced his pen, as sometimes happens So his left hand would not be required to take the place of stationary He was spared, as well, the possibility Of injuring himself, as he had once, unfortunately During a mild and near-unprecedented instance of self-mutilation Well, there had been no more than a few shallow puncture wounds Resulting from the understandable frustration that might accompany Being reduced to recording on his own flesh With the few lines of genuine poetry ever written He remained on his bench For an immaculately, and conspicuous, and legal length of time His somewhat deranged hat All the roof he'd be enjoying for a while yet His only mirror A shocking but swiftly curtailed couple seconds of eye-contact With an elderly woman Who happened to turn to him in passing Her crumpled, thrown-away face Putting up his collar He slowly got to his feet Staggering in a manner that was practically unnoticeable And doing a marvelous impression Of somebody not crushed by dread As he moved on Soon lost from sight in the rain Which was not really falling that much harder When I am done puking I get up from the floor, wash my face And, slowly resuming an erect stance Automatically look in the mirror Well, in the first place It isn't a mirror anymore But a window And on the other side of this window About ready to poke its head in Its gaze electric blue, the color of desert sky shining Through the eye sockets of a skull Now, we're apparently going to get A sort of Mickey Mouse with bloody teeth So things do not appear to be headed In an especially auspicious direction And it is with some discouragement That I exit the bathroom and walk down the hall Toward the living room Where, after a journey of several years I switch on the TV with the idea Of checking out the action on CNN It's not long before I discover that it is possible To weep from sheer astonishment and rage I never knew that The stained glass glow, light of the end of September Falls through the window Creating the impression of a staircase A steep and absurdly inviting one All at once, I am vividly aware Of what this room is going to look like When I am no longer alive (When I am no longer alive) (When I am no longer alive) Seagull in the corn Postage stamp-sized corn field in the woods In the middle of the state And how you ever got here Whether of Heaven, July in Massachusetts The blue sky one endless goodbye Give me a minute Maggots swarming, preview of the future Give me a moment You can haw on a blade until there is no blade Or dwell with magnifying glass so long on a word That finally, it darkens its knot And fire in widening circles consumes the world For a moment, only Stay with me, mystery Before you change completely into something other Slow cloud, entrance, spell Not yet remembered Nay, stay Tell me what you mean "A dead bird is not a dead bird" I was once told by someone Who knows? If I stare into it long enough The point comes when I don't know what it's called The condition in which lacerations are liable to occur Like a slip of the tongue Where a single drop of blood might billow In a glass of water Blooming in velvet detonation And imparting to it the colorless, tasteless, and sourceless fear In which I awake Strange I suffered from none of these symptoms Until I was so intensively treated for them Now, I am always freezing And have evidently been shattered Into five or six chattering replications of myself All knee-deep in utter exhaustion On very thin canes made of glass I remember the night We were torn, like a page, from our sleep "I, your telephone Command you to report to the ER without delay" The last thing you see is the first This time, it seems I woke up with Pneumonia, anemia, tuberculosis Further tests will be required Crucifixion by toothache A shadow by night And so forth Clearly, I will never be the same Yet you are with me To your entire satisfaction Has anyone described the look of love? Mine, neither But I have seen it I'm seeing it right now I am traveling up the beams of your eyes I am slowly being lowered into a place of light From my cell, I was staring at a cloud A dog decaying in the woods, et cetera As I took up the long-awaited sequel to my confessions By this time, my hand was so far away That it looked like a small, hairless spider Whose progress I could hardly help but follow In the corner of one eye As it went on filling page after page in a notebook With words too small for anyone to read I looked up And noticed my bars had turned to gold And before I forgot I'd like to be the first to congratulate everyone Who has not committed suicide up until now Camouflaged and candleless congregation The world will never know your names Never know its debt to you or what you suffered Is what uncomplaining anguish you sacrificed The one thing I'll hold most dear Most have in common The sense of being completely different from anybody else It's just banished at some point Having obtained its sexually mature and winged state You had a great vision about it, but told no one We have misnamed death, "life" And life, "death" You saw another world And it was precisely the same as this one This time, you told everyone Until someone asked you very nicely to quiet down And the weather Everything you have heard on that subject Is a serious understatement The scarlet horrors were preparing to file in From my ignominious obsequies Already, they swarmed freely over my body And there was no weather I can't tell you how perfect that was As it happens I had been gazing up at the dusk stars As I can be found doing more or less day or night For I like to think they are growing younger as I die Come by some time And tell me what you think Under torture Some atrocious form of tickling, for example I guess I'd describe myself as a fairly good egg in hot water Family motto roughly translates "April wizards bring May blizzards" You tend to be apprehended eventually After a futile but all the more spirited attempt At first-degree self-impersonation However, this is not the time for brevity We happen to be speaking with a serious medical goodnight kiss Traditionally, we are then detained at a local mental facility Known for its celebrated alumni Though in recent decades Secret and permanent socialist elements in the government have seen to it That the lowest scum of humanity now appear to have open access To those once-hallowed halls smeared with our shit and vomit What I'm getting at is this After a relatively brief stay, we are invariably released With some deranged doctor's or other's blessing A mixture of release and disgust on the part of the staff And the secret eye signal That will get you into any moviehouse in Milwaukee Free for the next year Some of us like to get together once a day Rain or shine And gather furtively at the picnic ground Under those tall, wavering, candle-flame pines Where neither moths nor rust can reach, nor faintest scream And exchange ribald tales verging on Satanic perversion Each drawing his iridescent injection from the same oceanic martini Where he dry about two tears' worth of Vermouth In an unremembered dream The small, silver, crucified man hangs between her breasts Like an arrow directing attention Away from the face and its nimbus of unasked-for beauty All that stands between her and apparition While pointing the way to the ever-inexplicable vie All that's left of her animal Damp, like the tip of a painter's brush Just dipped in darkest blue She has put the thing on like a necklace And gone to admire it in the full-length mirror In muted light, the color of gold a shadow At this late afternoon hour There's a light that enters houses With no other house in sight How describe it? But then, there are more important things to think about than light It lies in the dresser, blackly glowing The one object that's completely self-explanatory here Just look at you Child with the sun-colored eyes Waiting in line with love's immemorable patience And their grievances at scarecrow light stand still How slowly, how badly they mend Just one more being tested They needed to double-take the Coke bottle, glass Straining in the poor light to make out The oversized letters of their own obituaries While they're waiting to be born Soon, soon, between one instant and the next You will be well There is a sound that comes from houses With no other house in sight Wisteria, rain Where is your child, mother? This must be the last bee on Earth So, you find no more grandeur or mystery here? Perhaps you neglected to bring any Heckling sparrows Vast electron cloud of gnats on windless water Night, blue volume in a language no one reads Are we tired yet? Are you finished debating the blind Who insist that light doesn't exist in their peripheral view? Nobody's alone God is alone If you liked being born, you'll love dying